When a patient undergoes a hip or knee-joint surgery, the recuperation time needed is usually quite long. During this post operative period, one cannot be lying on his back all the time. But then, one should not put much stress on the affected part by standing or walking for a long time. What they need is a chair suitably designed to take care of the special needs of such patients. Specially made is the oak hip medical chair, one such chair that will help patients in need of such comfort. The main design feature in such chairs is that it has a comfortable sitting area. You need to make sure that the armrest is long enough so that the patient does not need to bend forward for comfort.

Typically the oak hip medical chair will have a seat that measures about 23″ by 18″ by 26″ that gives ample space for the patient. They make the chairs high enough so that the patient can sit straight. However, there is a foot rest provided at a convenient height to handle a straight sitting posture with foot support. A foot rest helps prevent stress on the affected knee or the hip of the patient. The Seat covering is usually of vinyl. They built the chairs from oak and are sturdy enough for specified patient weights of up to 375 lbs. Since these chairs are fairly large, no express delivery is available. They ship these from the original manufacturing locations in the ready to use form.

While the oak hip medical chair provides support when sitting, one might need physiotherapy to build up strength in patients. This relates specifically to back muscles and they use work hardening weight boxes to help build strength.

They use these types of boxes for work hardening exercises help strengthen the back muscles. They design these weights such that it simulates the work in stock room. It then requires people to lift heavy weights, and these weight boxes create those conditions accurately. These work hardening weight boxes weigh around 17.5 lbs and can increase it to up to 75 lbs. They do these weight increases by metal discs available separately. The oak hip medical chair and the work hardening weight box give a proper combination for physiotherapy for a recuperating worker from hip or knee surgery. While the boxes help build strength, the chair helps take a rest between sessions.

Dreamwave and Low Back Airbag Technology of the Inada Sogno Massage Chair

As a chiropractor I treated many patients with lower back pain. Of course, as a chiropractor, I applied a rotary low back adjustment to help loosen the low back joints and induce normal motion to the low back joints. You know the move…where the chiropractor twists the body of the patient “like a pretzel”, as patients describe it, to get the back to “pop.”

More often than not, that chiropractic adjustment or manipulation helped relieve the low back pain from which the patient was suffering. It usually took a few visits to get the full benefit of the therapy, but in 90% of the cases (approx.) we’d see an improvement in symptoms.

For those of you who have sat on a massage chair before, you know that the main function of every massage chair is the up and down rollers that move from the base of your skull down to the bottom of your back. The movement is purely up and down and side to side. The problem with most massage chairs is that there is not a rotary motion applied by any massage chair to the low back which mimics the low back adjustment movement of a chiropractic adjustment.

Now, I certainly don’t expect a massage chair to “pop” your bones, but a rotary motion in the low back would be helpful. I never really even thought about it until the Inada Sogno massage chair came onto the market. It had two low back features that totally captured my attention: 1.) waist airbags that alternately inflated so as to induce a rotation motion to the low back, and 2.) the Dreamwave technology in the seat that passively moved the pelvis.

I’ll discuss those Inada Sogno features here:

1. Inada Sogno Waist Airbags

Other chairs have waist airbags, but this was the first time I had seen airbags that inflated first on one side and then on the other in an alternating fashion. When I sat in the chair it felt like it was trying to mimic the movement that a chiropractor induces with their side posture lower back adjustment. Of course, it didn’t provide anywhere near the torque that a chiropractor can apply manually, but just to see a manufacturer try to mimic that motion even to a small degree was pretty cool. And it did feel quite nice on my low back.

2. Inada Sogno Dreamwave Technology

To sit on the Inada Sogno massage chair for the first time, you are quite surprised when the seat starts to move. I was very impressed with it. As a chiropractor I have seen so many patients come into the office who could barely move because of acute low back pain. I couldn’t even get them onto my treatment table to apply some manual therapy.

The Dreamwave Technology actually provides that passive motion that is so hard to do in a clinical situation. If you can get into the seat just to sit down, the chair will do the rest. Using the Dreamwave feature, you will feel the chair seat move in an undulating figure-8 motion from side to side. It also has an up and down component to the movement. It is so very soothing.

Of course, you don’t have to be in excruciating, debilitating pain to enjoy this feature. It is so gentle and passive that you will want to experience it every time you sit on this massage chair. This motion applies a gentle passive motion that will hydrate your lower back discs and relax the muscles of the pelvis and low back areas. It is quite a remarkable feature and one that will surely be copied by other manufacturers over time.

These two features in the Inada Sogno massage chair make it one of the most unique and therapeutically effective massage chairs in the world.

In healthcare, the term ‘bariatrics’ has been used in the US for quite some time to describe the relatively new, but increasing field of medicine that focuses on the treatment and control of obesity and disease associated with obesity. The term bariatrics is derived from ‘baros’ meaning heavy and ‘iatros’ meaning physician.

Guidelines for treatment of Overweight patients

Across the country, NHS groups are now producing guidelines on how to treat and care for overweight patients as the number of obese people in the population continues to grow. This short excerpt from Shetland NHS published guidelines shows the extent of the problem:

“Obesity has been described as a global epidemic. 0.8% of men and 1.8% of women (650,000 men & women in the UK) were reported as morbidly obese (i.e. BMI > 35) in 1999 (Health Survey for England 1998). The situation is worsening across all age groups to the point where incidence has trebled since 1980. In Grampian, there has been a commensurate increased incidence of heavy and very heavy patient admissions.”

Ergonomic Risk Factors

Patients over 28 stone must be nursed on the bariatric beds and sat on Bariatric chairs. Other ergonomic risk factors to be considered are: –

· Safe working load of the floor

· Type of floor covering

· Accessibility through doors

· Lifts

Safe Working Load

Bariatric chairs have a Safe Working Load or SWL. It is essential that the SWL is not exceeded as it will affect the stability and mechanism of the equipment and could injure the patient. Sometimes the equipment will be labelled with a safe working capacity (SWC). These terms and acronyms are relating to the same working limit factor.

Specialised equipment should take into account the additional weight and the width of the patient.

Risk Assessment

It is recommended to execute a risk assessment for the management and care of overweight patients. Safety is paramount when considering the treatment of any obese patient, but especially when considering the movement of a heavy patient. Special care is recommended when considering the space surrounding the patient for lifting and movement purposes. Also, the type floor covering must be considered – to minimise slips and trips.

Bariatric chair suppliers

There are very few online office furniture companies that offer Bariatric single lounge chair for users up to 340kgs. Check online for UK bariatric chairs or healthcare furniture including bariatric beds.